C022 - Survival Club & Flying

Gathering firewood and learning to create temporary shelter with a variant of the cutting curse that was more suited for stone that for wood was our first lesson. Drinkable water, silencing charms, making yourself odorless and less visible - that's what we learned next. Becoming downright invisible with the Disillusionment Charm was possible, but that was supposed to be a N.E.W.T. level spell, one we would be taught at a later date.

These spells were what Flitwick taught us over the course of a few hours until Hagrid came back with a dead boar hefted over his massive shoulder. It still had an arrow lodged into its eye, so it seemed to have been Lara's kill since Hagrid's crossbow had a much thicker bolt notched in place.

"For those squirmish among you, I'll suggest you look away. For those of you who want to truly survive in the wilderness, listen to Hagrid," Kettleburn explained and let the half-giant do his thing.

With a rope, the mountain of a man hung up the boar with its head pointing at the ground to let it bleed out as he explained everything he did. Bloodletting was necessary to make the meat taste less game-y and it was done so that the meat can be eaten for longer, among other things. Hagrid even explained to us the many uses of the blood he saved in a huge bucket, though he personally did it to feed some thestrals later.

After that came the true gore as Hagrid started gutting the animal with a fine knife that looked like a toothpick in his massive hands. The guts, too, were saved in the bucket for later use. Though, Hagrid did mention that they could be used as excellent fertilizer for almost anything.

With that graphic teaching moment done, I looked to the other students and saw Neville just about ready to barf. Something a few other students had in common with him.

Not Lara, though. She looked fine, and I was starting to think this was not the first time she had seen something like this.

"My uncle took me hunting a few times," Lara whispered to me as she stood beside me, and I was surprised she even shared something so personal with me. Usually, we would just read books in each other's general vicinity. Her telling me about her father was the most she had ever talked to me before.

"If he's anything as educational as Hagrid, I'm sure those were quite some trips," I whispered back as we watched Hagrid's massive form effortlessly skin the carcass and strip it of its meat like he was peeling a potato.

Lara merely gained a very faint, fond smile and stopped talking as we heard someone finally puke. Unsurprisingly, it was Neville who couldn't hold it anymore after Hagrid almost kicked over the bucket with the blood and guts in it and gave us a new smell sensation with the wind hitting us just right.

I wondered at that moment why I was so calm and unbothered, but I chalked it up to my Occlumency that was giving me a firm grasp over my psyche.

"Now, roasting the meat is good, but for taste you still want to do something else," Hagrid instructed after he made a fire by actually ripping some bark from a tree, placing it on the ground with a few quartered logs he had assembled with a deft hand and an axe. By merely knocking together two fist-sized stones - my fist not his - the wood pile was lit aflame instantly.

"Usually, if you can't find salt rocks and didn't bring any salt with you, I would suggest you try to find these herbs," Hagrid offered as he took several small bundles of herbs from one of his many pockets to pass around.

"Those are cumin, chives, rosemary, and thyme. Any of 'em will make the meat tasty, and they grow in this here forest. Usually, you can't find 'em this far north on this isle, but someone saw to it that they do indeed grow up here in cold Scotland."

As he continued his explanation, Kettleburn started to spear the meat pieces on small stakes and placed them around the fire. With a wave of his one good arm, all the meat pieces were slathered with a paste he had brought out of his pocket.

A few of us looked at him with a questioning gaze before he had enough and barked out, "I survive by being prepared. I'm never leaving my house without my seasonings, all grown by meself!"

With a chuckle, Flitwick took that as his cue and conjured up chairs with an impressive show of silent transfiguration.

"Just because I teach Charms and taught you nothing but spells, never neglect to use your full potential to survive," the charms professor answered the unasked question most of us had at the tip of our tongues.

The meat was okay to eat, definitely not even close to the level of the elves' cooking, but we each ate enough for lunch. After that, we once more split up with Hagrid and Flitwick both taking the hunting group out into forest once more.

We knew the spells the charms professor wanted to teach us now and were told to practice in our free time. Which meant it was Professor Kettleburn's turn to teach us all we needed to keep in mind during our expeditions into the wild.

He warned us about the spiders, telling us to indeed worry about the acromantulas, showed us how to spot the territory of the Centaurs that we best stay clear of, and ended it by giving us a few more cautionary tales about the deadliest creatures in Magical Britain. For more information, we would have to take his course on Care for Magical Creatures or be lucky enough to spot something during survival club, which was when he would tell us about the wild creature in question.

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It was Tuesday after lunch when I first mounted a broom. Most students were pretty excited about our first flying lesson, but then there were some who had been the exact opposite.

Hermione was one such person, and Isobel and Padma didn't look too excited either.

Then there were Harry and I. Harry had been hearing stories about his father being one of the best chasers playing for Gryffindor in this century, a tale that McGonagall the Quidditch fanatic had told him more than once. And I was just excited to do something that would put my increased reflexes to good use.

I wasn't wearing my eyepatch anymore but learned to use my ocular ability even with both eyes intact. The scar from the attack going over my eye met the scar over my nose at a slight angle and was still red and painful looking - but the pain was mostly gone.

My left hand was still twitching and would for another month or two, but my legs were doing okay now. I was also close to done with my 'body priming' as Flitwick had put it, and potions really were... well, magic. I had put on almost ten kilos of musclemass, and my training speed was nothing short of miraculous.

Where I could only do thirty pushups before and felt like my arms would fall off, I was now able to do several sets of fifty with weights on my back in a day. My running speed was hard to compare because I didn't do much exercise before and could only compare it to me running with muscle twitches after the assault. But I'd wager I'm one of the fastest sprinters at this school.

Admittedly, that isn't too impressive since barely anyone here worked out, but I did compare myself even to the 21 year old seventh years as a 14 year old.

"Now, hover your hand over the broomstick and shout 'Up!' to get the broom to snap into your hand," Madam Hooch instructed as we were gathered on a field near the path toward the Quidditch pitch.

All of us were standing with a broom to our right and were doing as told. I knew deep down that brooms required intent more than anything if their enchantments were still doing okay, so I envisioned the broom in my hands as I whispered the word 'up' as opposed to screaming it like some of my peers.

And the ratty old thing shot into my hand with a crisp, resounding slap that made a few of my year mates look over.

As opposed to canon, the flying class was taught to all four houses at the same time. To not leave Madam Hooch looking over fourty plus students all on her own in such a dangerous environment, all four Quidditch team captains, as well as one additional team member each, were allowed to attend this lesson instead of sitting in their own classes.

To help, and of course, to scout potential new players, now that first years were already 14 as opposed to 11 in canon. For Ravenclaw, there were prefect Robert Hilliard's older brother and team captain Cilian Hilliard, who was already attending to Harry as well as future team captain Roger Davies, who was busy oggling the girls.

Harry got the captain's attention because for the first time, he didn't hold back. In all his assignments, he was just a cut below outstanding. In all the practicals, he was just a cut above average. Not once has he shown off his tremendous potential - likely because his aunt and uncle beat it into him that he couldn't be better than their 'glorious' son Dudley.

I didn't know how to get that thinking out of him, so I was actually quite glad that it happened on its own. Likely because McGonagall, the old Quidditch fanatic, kept gushing about what an amazing chaser his father had been. A once a century prodigy who won them all five house cups during his tenure as the team captain.

And just like in canon, Harry seemed to have inherited that talent.

Davies walked over and nodded to me after he snapped out of his likely lewd day dream and appraised me for a moment.

"Macnair, good on you. Let's see if your talent keeps up with that fine control. Here, this is how you mount a broom," the chaser instructed as he showed off how to get on a broom.

With his shiny Cleansweep ready to go, he looked back to me once more, saw me copy his stance, and nodded, "That's right. Now, push off the ground and don't do anything hasty. Get a nice feel on how the broom moves by doing minimal movements in all directions, and I'll tell you more up in the air."

I watched him lift up then turned to my left to whisper with a wink, "You got this, Hermione. I'll catch you if you fall," and shot up into the air like Davies had, except I was much higher than him by accident.

From up in the air, I saw Oliver Wood, the Gryffindor team captain, do the same with Ron Weasley of all people. I knew in canon Ron would eventually inherit Wood's role as the team's keeper, but I didn't know Ron was actually shown as talented before his fifth year.

'Three more years at home were likely spent on a broom,' I pondered, and realised that it was only fair that Ron was actually a decent flier. Not only did his mum birth enough children to man an entire Quidditch team, all his brothers save for Percy have shown tremendous talents in the sport.

Bill Weasley had been Gryffindor's star seeker for six years during his time at Hogwarts, Charlie Weasley had been the team captain just last year before graduating and giving his position to Wood, and both Weasley twins were already the beaters for team Gryffindor.

The second Gryffindor team member attending this lesson was Alicia Spinnet, and she had Michael Corner following her like a love-struck puppy.

Meanwhile, Cedric Diggory was already in the air with Oliver Rivers and Wayne Hopkins from the Hufflepuff first years, while their to-me-yet-unnamed team captain was arguing something with Slytherin's team captain Marcus Flint.

Adrien Pucey, the team's 'star chaser' and prospect to go pro upon graduation, had Blaise Zabini and Draco Malfoy in the air. The Malfoy scion was busy annoying everyone on the ground by flying dangerously close to their heads and ignoring Pucey's instruction, and I even saw him accidentally kick Goyle in the head.

The fat kid didn't even stagger thanks to his body mass, and I doubted he lost any braincells from the kick, but it was still a fun sight.

"Eyes in the game, Macnair," Davies admonished and got me back to thinking about my broom and current flight.

I wasn't yet proficient in multiple thoughts, but thanks to my accomplishments in occlumency, my multi-tasking ability was leagues above regular people. While watching everything down below, I had been doing micromovements to get a feel for the controls like Davies had suggested and got the controls down.

"Try to keep up," the Ravenclaw player playfully shouted and threw me a honey melon sized ball that I was able to catch with my good hand.

Davies was doing completely impractical barrel rolls and helix loops in mid-air that I was getting better and better at following despite my lacking broom. I was nowhere near as fast as him on his own broomstick, but my proficiency still made Roger look back to me from time to time in astonishment.

And if my flying wasn't enough, I was doing my best to pass him the Quaffle, one of the four balls of Quidditch, the one you make points with in the game of Quidditch. My passes weren't particularly fast, but they were getting more and more accurate to the point that I hit the Quidditch player right in the nook of his elbow for an easy catch each time.

"Shit, Macnair. What are those passes?"

"Hey, language, Davies. What's happening here?" Captain Hilliard asked as he flew over with Harry in tow. My roommate had a face-splitting grin on his face as he flew over to me.

"Macnair's passes are like he enchanted the Quaffle with a magnet spell or something. Hey, do that again, Macnair," Davies explained before he shouted to me and threw the Quaffle in my general direction. "Watch this, captain."

I dove down to get his hopefully intentionally botched pass, caught it, and flew under the two Ravenclaw players to pass the ball with an over the shoulder pass from below right under Davies' armpit. The Quaffle lodged right into it despite him doing erratic figure-eights mid-air, and the captain started to look at me like I was his naked girlfriend.

"Get up here, Macnair," the captain ordered with a shout, and I flew over toward him and Harry.

"Are you interested in Quidditch?" Hilliard asked instead of beating around the bush.

"Uh, sure. I promised myself I'd at least try. Though I gotta say, the rules regarding fouls, time-outs, and the points for the seeker are pretty nonsensical to me," I answered with a smile.

"Great. You'll learn to love the sport even with its imperfections, so don't think too much about it. We have two amazing chasers and a mediocre one. If you're better than Burrow, you're on the team, and he goes on the bench. I didn't know how this day would go, but I did not expect to enlist two first years into the team before I graduate," Hilliard said with a shake of his head at the end.

"Potter is in, too?" Davies asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, Page wants to focus on his O.W.L.s this year because his mum tore him a new one after his grades last year. He asked me to be substitute keeper for my position if we find someone to replace him, and it looks like we did."

"Well, Grant was just a good seeker and not a great one anyway. If you say Potter is better, who am I to argue?"

Hilliard nodded and looked to Harry and I grinning at each other. His thoughts were his own, but it looked like he was genuinely happy there for a while.

We were all contently discussing our enlistment up there for a while until we heard a scared shout from below.

Hermione and Sue were in a free fall with Draco barely hanging onto his own broom with a single hand, and I immediately felt time slow down as I fell from my own broom by choice.

Without thinking, without words, I whipped out my wand in an instant thanks to a duellist quick-draw holster gifted by Flitwick since my old one was destroyed, and cast 'Spongify' on the ground below us.

After that, I tried to cast 'Arresto Momentum' on both girls but only hit Sue in my first attempt. I cast another on Hermione and managed to hit her, but by this point, I was pretty much more than halfway down and only a good 3 meters above ground.

I didn't have time to take something out of my pockets to use it as a stepping stone midair like I practiced with the padlock when I noticed the space-freeze effect during my charms practice, so I cast the spell on my own shoe.

Sadly, I miscalculated my own speed and the effect of the spell and barely slowed down a little before I slipped out of my shoe that stayed where it was while I started spinning mid-air. I cast another 'Arresto Momentum' on my other shoe and lost that one too, but both my fall and my spinning slowed down.

With another cast, I lost the sock on my left foot and most of my speed with only a meter above air. I skipped casting another spell, fell to the floor with only one sock, bounced slightly on the 'Spongified' floor before doing a roll forward to dispel my momentum like I had seen Heimdall do in one of the dreams of the god's training sessions, and looked back up to see where Hermione and Sue were.